CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu Minister for Information Technology and Digital Services, Palanivel Thiagarajan (PTR) on Thursday said Tamil Nadu has always excelled in linguistics and it stands as the first State to face the new challenges of the times.
Addressing the gathering after inaugurating 'Kani Tamil24', an international Tamil computing conference at the Chennai Trade Centre, PTR said, "In linguistics, we (Tamil Nadu) are always at the forefront. No one can doubt that. Tamil Nadu has always excelled in linguistics. Tamil Nadu stands as the first State to face the new challenges of the times. With a long history, our mother Tamil should stand at the forefront of the science and technology journey. We all have to work together for that."
Exuding fear, Thiagarajan said, "While a major change is expected in the education sector and artificial intelligence (AI) is expected to be a boon in the medicine and business industries. At the same time, there is a fear of what impact these technologies are going to have on the society's political economy."
"The role of the AI language is important and we have to prepare our language and ourselves according to AI technology. The Tamil Nadu government is making efforts to improve Tamil. Tamil will get better with AI technology, " he noted.
Kani Tamil24 is organised 25 years after the TamilNet99 conference which was held under the late chief minister M Karunanidhi. The Tamil Virtual Academy was formed as an outcome of TamilNet99 which is conducting the conference this year.
The conference is being organised to undertake research, develop new ideas and identify young talents in emerging language technologies.
Computing scholars, computational linguists, IT experts and Tamil enthusiasts from across the world are participating in the conference that will conclude on February 10, Saturday. There will be panel discussions, lectures, paper presentations and competitions. IT secretary Dheeraj Kumar and other officials were present on the occasion.